View Full Version : Mubarak resigns, hands power to military
Mubarak resigns, hands power to military
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ml_egypt
"CAIRO – Egypt exploded with joy, tears, and relief after President Hosni Mubarak resigned as president, forced out by 18 days of mass protests that culminated in huge marches Friday on his presidential palaces and state television. The military took power after protesters called for it to intervene and oust their leader of three decades............."
So the Military will handle the transition it appears.
Report: Council to suspend Parliament, fire Cabinet
http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/02/11/6033562-report-council-to-suspend-parliament-fire-cabinet
Middle East channel Al Arabiya reports that the Higher Military Council, which has taken control from Hosni Mubarak, will fire Mubarak's Cabinet, suspend both houses of Parliament and rule with the head of the supreme constitutional court.
Reuters is quoting a military source as saying Defense Minister Mohamed Hussein Tantawi will be the head of the ruling military council.
The moves come after Vice President Omar Suleiman's announced Mubarak's resignation. Here's the full text of his remarks, as translated by MSNBC TV:
In the name of Allah the merciful, the compassionate
Dear citizens,
Amid these difficult circumstances the country is going through, president Muhammad Hosni Mubarak has decided to step down from presidency, he has delegated the supreme council of the armed forces to take charge of the country's affairs
May Allah be our guide and our help.
If this plays out to be true; I think a lot more AP nations will be worried and cracking down on internet network sites and usage. Arab Nations will afraid of their own people conducting mass protests with huge marches in protest of their countries current leadership(s).
The Reaper
02-11-2011, 12:30
Unanticipated 2nd and 3rd order effects coming.
Stand by for interesting times.
TR
Heard Gen. Boykin say on Foxnews this morning, that this was going to be just like Iran in 1979. He guessed that the Muslim Brotherhood was going to take power, and this is a very bad sign for Isreal.:munchin
Holly
Dozer523
02-11-2011, 12:39
The Egyptian Military has shown remarkable restraint. Hell our damn tankers won't let US Infantry climb aboard (remember the M-60 series "grunt rails"?).
When my team got to work with them (1989) at Campbell and near Cairo I was struck by the 'of the people-ness' common to the Soldiers and junior Officers. Witnessed very little eliteness, but had a very short view range. At least there weren't any minor princes running around like with the Jordanians.
Any comments on the top of the pyramid?
cszakolczai
02-11-2011, 13:15
The military coming to power is just following Egyptian history... after all when many Egyptians are uniting in the streets under a common flag and proclaiming their devotion to their country and not their religion, it will (in my opinion) bring about another leader such as Nasser.
And to comment on MTNGoat's post, I agree completely. I think this morning the first thing they said was Iran shut down certain media outlets and was already attempting to restrict the flow of news within the country.
?authority
02-11-2011, 13:21
x
SouthernDZ
02-11-2011, 14:20
Smells like, ... Freedom.
The real question is what will it smell like next month?
Egyptians saw what was possible, even in the Middle East, by watching Tunisia...Jordan and Yemen have CNN as well.
It's going to be an interesting year; think I'll buy stock in Schwinn and Vespa.
Why can't we just start building Nuke plants in every county in the US. That would be a lot less risk then we take now relying on that part of the world to have some sense. We had to go to War to protect our oil interest when just one country over there got invaded (gulf war 1)
What do you think it will be like if the oil flow was cut off.
Smells like, ... Freedom.
Could this revolution be a protest against the MB - they have been governing since 1952, and Mubarak seems to have ruled by a Sharia based constitution :confused:
EX-Gold Falcon
02-12-2011, 01:12
Amusing Tweet I read from a protester in Egypt.
Lama Hasan tweets: "In true Arab fashion, the jokes have started. Gaddafi has cancelled Fridays...after Ben Ali and Mubarak both left on a Friday."
T.
Egyptian defense chief unknown in West, derided at home
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/02/11/egypt.tantawi.profile/index.html?hpt=C1
"(CNN) -- Mohammed Hussein Tantawi is Egypt's deputy prime minister, defense minister and commander-in-chief of the country's armed forces. In the West, little is known about him, or how he intends to lead the Egyptian military, now that it's in charge of the government................."
Notice how much of this story is based on Wikileaks documents. I guess it's a new age of journalism. So much for shoeleather reporting.
Egypt military authorities 'to respect all treaties'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12440138
"The Egyptian military has reaffirmed the country's commitment to all its regional and international treaties.
The announcement, which was read by a spokesman on state TV, implicitly confirms that the country's peace treaty with Israel will remain intact.
The military also vowed to oversee a peaceful transition to civilian rule.
The statement comes as thousands still occupy Cairo's central Tahrir Square, celebrating the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak on Friday."
Good news for some but.........
The treaty with Israel is a major thorn in the side of most Egyptians. This could become a major issue in the coming election.
Egypt military authorities 'to respect all treaties'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12440138
"The treaty with Israel is a major thorn in the side of most Egyptians. This could become a major issue in the coming election.
The Israelis are thinking they might have another Iran on their hands.
If this plays out to be true; I think a lot more AP nations will be worried and cracking down on internet network sites and usage. Arab Nations will afraid of their own people conducting mass protests with huge marches in protest of their countries current leadership(s).
Why just the AP countries? I would argue that some of the FSU nations are concerned...oh wait...they don't have the internet.
Nevermind.
Seriously though, I wonder what the USG contingency is for a low intensity "uprising" here? I don't believe Egypt-style event could happen here but what about large scale protests fueled by an economic event?
"They can have my iPhone when they pry it from my cold dead fingers!" There's an app for that! ;)
Dozer523
02-12-2011, 13:45
The Israelis are thinking they might have another Iran on their hands.
I don't think so. Iranians, as they so often remind us, are Persians not Arabs.
Egypt has been the concience of the middle East, they won't stray far from their nature. I hope.
cszakolczai
02-13-2011, 00:55
I don't think so. Iranians, as they so often remind us, are Persians not Arabs.
Egypt has been the concience of the middle East, they won't stray far from their nature. I hope.
I dont think they will either, but at the same time we cannot completely turn a blind eye to minority groups coming to power. Iran is a prime example in which the communist Tudeh party was instrumental in overthrowing the Shah, only to have the religious right gain hold of the demonstrations and appoint their man "Ayatollah Knomeini" into power. It's interesting to note the shift from left to right, but it's also important to note the changes which the Shah was enforcing within the society. Some viewed it as a overly western ideology and this is a factor in instituting a man who was returning to Islamic routes.
Although Mubarek was very pro US, I dont believe his institutions and ideology was to promote western ideals within the country and alienate his own people as the Shah did. Also we have to realize, google and twitter, both very American companies, were instrumental in helping people communicate with each other throughout the demonstrations. In my honest opinion, google and twitter helped create a stronger ally within the region as Egyptians wont forget this. Our being stateside and the media did not accurately portray the effect of google and twitter. Having spoken to a few Egyptians who were in Egypt during the protest, google and twitter were the only ways to communicate including google allowing people to make calls with computers to land lines.
So having said all this, I dont think we'll have another Iran. Israel and Egypt may not get along and may hate each other for the coming years, but the United States can constantly remind the Egyptian people the aid our American companies provided in their struggle for freedom. With that the United States will hopefully be able to keep the peace treaty between the two nations alive. In my honest opinion, Egyptian people dont forget things to quickly as I still hear many speak of Nasser and his ideas of Arab Nationalism, so hopefully the aid we provided will stay in their minds as long and we can use this to create a stronger ally in the region.
incarcerated
02-13-2011, 01:23
Seriously though, I wonder what the USG contingency is for a low intensity "uprising" here?
I believe the plan is to rely heavily on CNN and MSNBC to provide wall-to-wall coverage with positive spin, explaining how, at long last, deep grievances have risen above the repression in an outpouring of free expression and true democracy, as the impoverished protestors’ cries for justice are finally heard by a sympathetic world. Administration officials will call for change. After several weeks of this, the White House will lend its full support to the protestors, enhancing the Administration’s outreach to them and hailing them as non-violent champions of freedom and human rights. We will be told that the wheel of history is turning at a blinding pace, that the people’s hunger for change has finally been fed, that this is the way that real democracy works, and that protest is the power of human dignity and can never be denied. It will be a great day for all mankind.
And Stephen Harper will be called upon to step down.
:rolleyes:
As I said in another post - this issue will play out over the next few years. There are some key points to watch.
The first being who writes the new constitution and what it says - what rights are protected. Does it tilt secular and protect everyone or does it tilt towards Sharia?
The second would be the election itself. What parties get a number of seats and which coalition is formed. Again tilted to Sharia or secular.
The next two would not be noticed by the MSM but are also key. The first is change in Military leadership. A couple of links around here went to stories about how big the Military industrial complex is in Egypt - and how the leadership is ridiculed at the lower officer levels. I think if the government moves against the military leadership they can count on the lower level officers keeping the troops out of it. Hey, take out enough leadership and your chances of promotion are better.
The second are the Coptic Christians in Egypt. If a more Sharia based government takes over look for attacks against them to increase. There are a lot of Christians in Egypt. Where would they go? Who would take them in?
The next couple of years will see a twitch of news here and a twitch of news there. We'll see who notices and adds 2 plus 2 and gets 4.
I believe the plan is to rely heavily on CNN and MSNBC to provide wall-to-wall coverage with positive spin, explaining how, at long last, deep grievances have risen above the repression in an outpouring of free expression and true democracy, as the impoverished protestors’ cries for justice are finally heard by a sympathetic world. Administration officials will call for change. After several weeks of this, the White House will lend its full support to the protestors, enhancing the Administration’s outreach to them and hailing them as non-violent champions of freedom and human rights. We will be told that the wheel of history is turning at a blinding pace, that the people’s hunger for change has finally been fed, that this is the way that real democracy works, and that protest is the power of human dignity and can never be denied. It will be a great day for all mankind.
And Stephen Harper will be called upon to step down.
:rolleyes:
Substitute Harper for Yelstin and I'm pretty sure I already saw that coverage on Itar-TASS back in Aug 1991. It's a sad day when folks realize that "independent" media is really State-sponsored.
I don't believe Egypt-style event could happen here but what about large scale protests fueled by an economic event?
2008, One sided journalism, Rock Star promotion and the election of the unknown Barrack Obama by teary eyed worshippers. The Tea Party. The numbers are there, the people can be manipulated when prompted.
Then you need some kindling......greedy banks, stolen pensions, lost jobs, lost dreams, unemployment, sending jobs overseas, economy in shambles, lying politicians, etc, etc. Roll it all up in a tight ball..
And then a spark to set it ablaze.
Brought to you by MTV, Google, MSNBC, CNN and a Cadre of movers and shakers.
http://allyoumov.3cdn.net/f734ac45131b2bbcdb_w6m6idptn.pdf
http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/about/~/link.aspx?_id=007F025EA86D4399B7F8C7BEB488046E&_z=z
http://www.movements.org/pages/sponsors
....the same folks who pimped Barrack Obama.
Maybe it already happened here..........
"Biggest mistake now is to give the Egyptian people too little too slow. Restoring confidence requires a faster pace," Wael Ghonim said on Twitter.
That is the same kind of GOOGLE-FU helped Hank Paulsen pull off TARP, and Pelosi, Reid and the Administration performed on the American People after the 2008 election......gotta do it NOW, RIGHT NOW.....before people wake up
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/02/13/egypt.revolution/index.html?hpt=T1&iref=BN1
As George Will said this morning, "We're only in the second inning of a nine inning game."
And so it goes...
Richard :munchin
Egypt’s Path After Uprising Does Not Have to Follow Iran’s
Anthony Shadid, NYT, 12 Feb 2011
Two Egyptian leaders have been struck down in 30 years: one by an Islamist assassin’s bullets, the other by the demands of hundreds of thousands of protesters in a peaceful uprising. The first event, the death of President Anwar el-Sadat, marked a spectacle of the most militant brand of political Islam. The revolution the world witnessed Friday, the toppling of President Hosni Mubarak, may herald the dawn of something else.
There is a fear in the West, one rarely echoed here, that Egypt’s revolution could go the way of Iran’s, when radical Islamists ultimately commandeered a movement that began with a far broader base. But the two are very different countries. In Egypt, the uprising offers the possibility of an accommodation with political Islam rare in the Arab world — that without the repression that accompanied Mr. Mubarak’s rule, Islam could present itself in a more moderate guise.
Egypt’s was a revolution of diversity, a proliferation of voices — of youth, women and workers, as well as the religious — all of which will struggle for influence. Here, political Islam will most likely face a new kind of challenge: proving its relevance and popularity in a country undergoing seismic change.
“Choosing a regime will become the right of the people,” Ali Abdel-Fattah, a Muslim Brotherhood leader, said Saturday. “The nature of the regime will be decided by elections. And I think Egyptians agree on the demands and how to realize them.”
Of countries in the region, only Turkey has managed to incorporate currents of political Islam into a system that has so far proven viable, but its bold experiment remains unfinished. The rest of the region is strewn with disasters, from the ascent of the most militant strands in Iraq after the American invasion to the rise of populist and combative movements in the Palestinian territories and Lebanon that emerged under Israeli occupation.
In Egypt, repression of its Islamic activists helped give rise to the most extremist forces in the Muslim world — leadership of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and an insurgency against its own government in the 1990s.
But at its core the revolt that finally toppled Mr. Mubarak had a very different set of demands. Its organizers rallied to broad calls for freedom, social justice and a vague sense of nationalism that came together over a belief that distant and often incompetent rulers had to treat the opposition with respect. The demands were voiced by youth, women, workers and adherents of revived currents of liberalism, the left and Arab nationalism, spread by social networks made possible by new technology.
The Muslim Brotherhood, a mainstream group that stands as the most venerable of the Arab world’s Islamic movements, is of course also a contender to lead a new Egypt. It has long been the most organized and credible opposition to Mr. Mubarak. But is also must prepare to enter the fray of an emerging democratic system, testing its staying power in a system ruled by elections and the law.
“This is not yesterday’s Egypt,” declared Amal Borham, a protester in Tahrir Square.
“It is their right to participate as much as it is mine, as much as it is anyone else’s in this country,” added Ms. Borham, who considers herself secular. “They are part of this society, and they have been made to stay in the shadows for a very long time.”
The protests illustrated the challenges before the Brotherhood and other Islamic groups. While the Brotherhood eventually brought its organizational prowess to the demonstrations — organizing security and deploying its followers overnight when the protests lulled — it was reluctant to join at first. Indeed, many protesters saw it as a representative of an old guard that they believed had for so long failed to answer society’s problems.
Even some of the Brotherhood’s own youthful supporters expressed frustration with their leaders’ cautiousness.
It will undoubtedly moderate its message in a campaign, trying to appeal to the broadest constituency. The next elections promise to be far more competitive than the shams of past years, when many Egyptians simply stayed home. That emerging diversity may prove more uncomfortable than the head-to-head confrontation with Mr. Mubarak’s enforcers that helped define the Brotherhood’s appeal.
“The system made them work in the dark and that made them look bigger than they are,” said Ahmed Gowhary, a secular organizer of the protests. “Now it will be a real chance for them to show that they are more Egyptian than they have appeared.”
“Their real power,” he added, “will show.”
The Arab world has a spectrum of Islamic movements, as broad as the states that have repressed them, from the most violent in Al Qaeda to the most mainstream in Turkey. Though cast for years as an insurgent threat by Mr. Mubarak, the Brotherhood in Egypt has long disavowed its violent past, and now has a chance to present itself as something more than a force for opposition to Mr. Mubarak’s authoritarianism.
Founded by a schoolteacher named Hassan el-Banna in the Suez Canal town of Ismailiyya in 1928, it quickly became the most important political contestant in the country, boasting a vibrant press, delivering weekly lectures from mosques and reaching out to students, civil servants, urban laborers and peasants. It was banned in 1954 under Gamal Abdel Nasser, the founder of Mr. Mubarak’s state, weathering a brutal crackdown that instilled in it the iron discipline of a clandestine movement.
The repression, which persisted until last month, produced some of the Muslim world’s most militant thinkers, among them Sayyid Qutb, who had a profound impact on militancy across the Muslim world. But remarkably, the movement also evolved over those same years, pursuing coalitions with other political parties since 1984, joining street protests with leftist groups and entering a feeble Parliament as independents, whose demands were not enforcement of Islamic strictures but opposition to martial law.
Its former leader turned heads in 2005 when he offered a play on the group’s traditional slogan, “Islam is the solution.” “Freedom is the solution,” he declared.
The Brotherhood’s relationship with the government came full circle last Sunday, when Vice President Omar Suleiman invited it to talks. “It exposed the lie of the regime that the Brotherhood is a violent organization, anti-systemic and a threat to the country,” said Samer Shehata, a professor at Georgetown University.
Although Iran’s and Egypt’s revolutions share a date, Feb. 11, the comparisons end there. Millions welcomed Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on his return from Paris. In Egypt, there was no charismatic figure of stature.
Unlike the Shiite Muslim clergy in Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood is neither led by clerics nor based on a clerical organization. In many ways, it represents a lay middle class. The very dynamics are different, too: cassette tapes of Ayatollah Khomeini’s speeches helped drive Iran’s revolution, whose zealots sought to export it. The Internet helped propel the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, the medium’s own diffusion helping carry it from the backwater town of Sidi Bouzid in Tunisia to Tahrir Square in Cairo.
Perhaps most importantly, the revolutions occurred a generation apart, a note echoed in the Brotherhood stronghold of Munira, along streets of graceful balustrades of the colonial era and the utilitarian architecture of Mr. Nasser and his successors.
“The people are aware this time,” said Essam Salem, a 50-year-old resident there. “They’re not going to let them seize power. People aren’t going to be deceived again. This is a popular revolution, a revolution of the youth, not an Islamic revolution.”
In the struggle, morality was rarely mentioned, even by the Muslim Brotherhood, which echoed the demands that swung broad segments of Egypt’s population to the revolution’s side.
“We’re a part of the people and there is a consensus over the people’s demands,” said Hamdi Hassan, another Brotherhood official.
Across the Arab world, the most militant Islamic movements are those embedded in conflict — Hezbollah and Hamas — or stateless, like Al Qaeda, celebrating in mystical terms this generation’s equivalent of armed struggle. Iraq’s bloodiest spectacles, claimed by a homegrown Islamic militant movement, occurred in a civil war that followed the American invasion.
In many ways, the Brotherhood is the counterexample, echoed in the success of Turkey’s Justice and Development Party. It has de-emphasized the mainstays of Islamic activism — charity and proselytizing, for instance — for the prize of political success in Parliament.
While it remains deeply conservative, it engages less in sometimes frivolous debates over the veil or education and more in demands articulated by the broader society: corruption, joblessness, political freedom and human rights abuses.
The shift illustrates both its strengths and its weaknesses.
“The ability to present a mainstream national reform agenda and mobilize and galvanize Egyptians around this agenda, this is something the Muslim Brotherhood has failed to do,” said Emad Shaheen, a professor at the University of Notre Dame. “The youth have achieved in 18 days what the Brotherhood failed to achieve in 80 years.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/world/middleeast/13islam.html
incarcerated
02-18-2011, 10:30
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/europe/Victory-March-in-Egypt-top-cleric-for-sacking-cabinet/articleshow/7523475.cms
'Victory March' in Egypt; top cleric for sacking cabinet
PTI, Feb 18, 2011, 09.04pm IST
RANIA CAIRO: Tens of thousands of Egyptians today packed the Tahrir Square here, the flash point of the pro-democracy protests that toppled President Hosni Mubarak, for a " victory march", even as an influential cleric asked military to sack the cabinet dominated by old-regime figures.
In a Friday sermon held in the Egyptian capital's Tahrir Square, Qatar-based Egyptian cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi, close to Muslim Brotherhood, asked Arab leaders to listen to their people and acknowledge their region has changed.
"The world has changed, the world has progressed, and the Arab world has changed within," al-Qaradawi said.
"We want a new government that doesn't include the old faces ... When people see the old faces, it reminds them of hunger, poverty, misery," said Qaradawi, who is widely considered one of Islam's top scholars....
Qaradawi, who has close ties with Muslim Brotherhood, asked the military to sack the cabinet dominated by old regime figures, a key demand of pro-democracy activists....
In a Friday sermon held in the Egyptian capital's Tahrir Square, Qatar-based Egyptian cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi, close to Muslim Brotherhood, asked Arab leaders to listen to their people and acknowledge their region has changed.
So Wael Ghonim is a tool…., a useful idiot…:confused:
Google executive Wael Ghonim, who emerged as a leading voice in Egypt's uprising, was barred from the stage in Tahrir Square on Friday by security guards, an AFP photographer said. Ghonim tried to take the stage in Tahrir, the epicentre of anti-regime protests that toppled President Hosni Mubarak but men who appeared to be guarding influential Muslim cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi barred him from doing so.
Ghonim, who was angered by the episode, then left the square with his face hidden by an Egyptian flag.
> http://www.hindustantimes.com/Egypt-protest-hero-Wael-Ghonim-barred-from-stage/Article1-663996.aspx